After investing a significant amount of money into autonomous vehicle technology company Argo AI (along with Volkswagen), Ford decided that, back in 2022, Level 4 and 5 technology wouldn’t be viable or profitable anytime soon. As such, it pivoted to Level 2 and 3 autonomous vehicle technology, the latter of which is reportedly "right around the corner," while CEO Jim Farley recently said that Level 4 tech could be as well. However, Stellantis is reportedly putting its own L3 tech on ice, for now, at least.
According to a new report from Reuters, Stellantis has opted to shelve its own Level 3 advanced driver assistance program due to the high costs of development, technological challenges, and weak consumer demand for such a product. It's a big shift given the fact that the automaker just debuted its new STLA AutoDrive system this past February, its first automated driving system that was slated to deliver hands-free and eyes-off Level 3 functionality.
Stellantis never officially launched this software, but the company also insists that it isn't giving up on it completely. "What was unveiled in February 2025 was L3 technology for which there is currently limited market demand, so this has not been launched, but the technology is available and ready to be deployed," a Stellantis spokesperson said. Despite this, sources claim that Stellantis isn't expected to launch its Level 3 tech, regardless.
Stellantis wouldn't confirm how much money it lost on this particular initiative, only stating that the work it has done thus far on AutoDrive will support future versions. The report also notes that the automaker will rely more on third-party companies for these types of software moving forward after originally planning to do most of that development in-house. The concept there is to drive down the initial costs of development, after which companies can focus on making that software unique for their own applications.
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